The Heritage Vegetable Garden at Cutler Botanic Gardens demonstrates many vegetable growing techniques designed to make the most out of the garden space, extend the growing season and protect the crop from pests for a successful harvest.
The Heritage Vegetable Garden is located at the south end of the gardens, enclosed entirely by a fence with two gates of entry. It is a demonstration/education garden with over 30 raised beds, containers and trellis gardens, showing that even with limited space and resources you can begin to grow some of your own food. Some of the methods demonstrated are three season succession cropping, vertical gardening, square foot gardening and intercropping. Organic methods are used as much as possible which helps reduce yard waste by mulching with leaves or straw and composting plant material.
To maximize production the method of three season succession planting is used. Starting in March/April “cool season” crops such as lettuce, spinach, kale, collards and radishes are planted. The USDA hardiness zone for our area is 6a which means the warm season crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash should be put into the ground starting in late
May / early June, after threat of frost has passed. If the cool crops haven’t been harvested by then, these plants can be interspaced between the cool crops that are still growing. In early August when some crops have been harvested and the plants removed, the cool season crops can be rotated back into those spaces for a fall harvest.
In the center of the garden is one of the newer installations, a 12-foot-long trellis built with three cattle panels attached to T style fence posts. This trellis was constructed in a few hours at a cost of around $100. Trellis gardening or vertical gardening saves space and is easy to harvest by growing plants upward instead of sprawling. Vining vegetables such as peas (cool crop), pole beans, cucumbers and vining squashes can be trained to grow on trellises, there are even vining cherry tomatoes!
Another trellising method is called the Florida Weave. Twine is doubled and loosely strung out between fence posts at various heights so that vining crops like tomatoes have a ready-made support system. Tomato vines planted along this trellis system can be encouraged to grow up between the 2 lengths of twine as they get taller.
Square foot garden planning is designed to maximize production in a garden space while minimizing weeds. Dividing a 4’ x 8’ raised bed into a grid using string or landscape cloth creating 32 square foot squares perfectly spaced to plant summer squash, peppers, cabbage, collards, beets, and lettuce. This utilizes every square inch of the bed to grow vegetables and eliminates the space for weeds.
Two new galvanized steel, 17” high garden beds were added this spring. Instead of filling the new beds entirely with soil, which would have been very expensive, a modified method of Hügelkultur was employed. Hügelkultur is an ancient German practice of layering materials found in most backyards. Start with a layer of cardboard to help suppress weeds and attract worms. Add a layer of small logs, branches and twigs. Continue to layer with sod, grass clippings, straw and leaves, each layer adds nutrients to the bed as it breaks down. Finally, in the top 6 to 8 inches, soil and compost is added. This is a frugal and environmentally friendly way to build a new raised bed which will need less fertilizer and also conserve water.
Some cultural practices used are pesticide free. By using row covers, a lightweight poly spun fiber cloth that allows in sunlight and rain, excludes insects and vertebrate pests. Depending on the crop, the fabric can be used for part of the season (cucumbers – remover fabric at blossoming to allow pollinator access) or for the entire season (brussels sprouts – doesn’t require pollination). The cloth also extends the growing season by keeping the soil warmer for earlier spring planting and later fall plantings, while offering some protection from frost which aids in the three-season gardening mentioned above.
A red plastic mulch is being trialed for tomato production. The red plastic reflects sunlight of a certain wavelength that enhances the ripening of tomato fruit – that’s the theory anyway, we’ll see how that turns out!
By using the garden techniques described the Heritage Vegetable Garden is able to donate hundreds of pounds of vegetables to area food banks annually. CCE Master Gardener Volunteers are at the gardens on Tuesday mornings from mid-April to mid-October tending the beds. They are happy to answer questions and explain in more detail the methods described. Come and visit us and see how we make vegetable gardening successful and easy!
Updates to this post: in June, State Senator Lea Webb recognized members of the Veg Team for their contributions to the Broome County Public Library Food Pantry as part of the Farm to Library program. The team was also recently highlighted in the August edition of the Food & Farm Showcase, a feature on Newschannel 34.
